The modern master of Nordic noir is back with an explosive novel about two brothers who, on the verge of losing everything, are willing to do anything to stop that from happening.

By all accounts, Carol and Roy Opgard are doing quite well for themselves. Or at least they are doing as well as can be expected in a small town like Os. Carl manages the area’s swanky and successful spa, while Roy runs the local gas station and dreams of building it into an entire amusement park complete with a roller coaster. But then news breaks about a new highway that will bypass Os and leave the town cut off and isolated. Something has to be done about that, even if the methods need to be dirty. Fortunately, Roy and Carl have experience with dirty work.

Meanwhile, the town sheriff has gotten his hands on new technology that will enable him to take a deeper look at a spate of unsolved murders from years past—including that of his own father. Just as the sheriff reopens his investigation, the death toll begins to climb. Like Roy says about his roller coaster: “Once it is rolling, it’s too late to get off.”

Blood Ties is a tense, compulsively readable tour de force about loyalty, family ties and love that is as destructive as it is powerful.

Review:

Dark, simmering, and gritty!

Blood Ties is a slow-burning, intricate tale that takes us back to the small Norwegian village of Os and into the lives of the Opgard brothers. Carl, a college graduate turned spa owner, and Roy, a garage owner with lofty dreams of building an amusement park, as they each grapple with enduring jealousy, exceptional childhood cruelty, devastating violence, and long-buried secrets that bind them together but which may ultimately tear them apart.

The writing is edgy and tight. The characters are consumed, deceitful, and troubled. And the plot is an ominous, murky tale full of twists, turns, secrets, surprises, familial drama, lies, greed, obsession, resentments, mayhem, abuse, violence, childhood trauma, swirling emotions, guilt, wickedness, and murder.

Overall, Blood Ties is a twisty, unpredictable, sinister page-turner by Nesbo that transports you into the darkest corners of the human psyche and takes you on a roller coaster ride of psychological manipulation, control, corruption, and ruthless ambition.

This novel is available now.

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